To put it in better perspective, this
sum was equal to 25–30 per cent of the
government’s budget for fiscal year 2010-
2011. One Ministry (Ministry of Water
and Irrigation) was reported by the
said official to be losing Ksh. 10 billion
(approximately US$123 million), about
one-third of its budget, annually through
malpractice and mismanagement.
You may recall that in January 2010,
the US government announced it was
suspending education funding to Kenya
following reports that more than US$1
million was missing from the country’s
primary schooling programme. In a
speech to the American Chamber of
Commerce in Nairobi, the then US
Ambassador Ranneberger said the
planned US$7 million disbursement to
the Ministry of Education for a capacity-
building programme will stay suspended
‘until there is a credible independent
audit and full accountability and those
culpable for the fraud should not merely
be sacked, they should be prosecuted and
put behind bars’.
This move followed a British government
announcement in December 2009 that it
was withholding an approximate US$16
million grant over the disappearance
of funds for the free primary education
programme. The bone of contention
for the British was the fact that the
Ministries of Finance and Education had
failed to account for some US$1.5 million
budgeted for constructing new classrooms
and buying textbooks for poor students in
poverty ravaged districts.
Corruption and bad governance in
Kenya therefore does not only distort
the availability of funds for development
activities but also directly affect
development assistance partnerships.
The USA and the UK are Kenya’s
two biggest bilateral donors and they
seem to be constantly scolding the
Kenyan government and withholding or
suspending development assistance from
it due to persistent corruption. This cannot
be good for building and sustaining
effective development partnerships where
mutual accountability can be assured.
Currently, the sheer magnitude of
corruption in Kenya, and the culture of
impunity that goes along with it, has
resulted in a lack of confidence in Kenyan
government officials to the extent that
alternative methods of funding and
56 MAL29/19 ISSUE
The bribery culture in the country has seeped
into the Parliament, given the numerous ac-
cusations of bribery in the August House.
The media has frequently reported corrupt
dealings involving Members of Parliament
inside the House, with money frequently
changing hands to influence the outcome of
some House business.
implementing development assistance
programmes are being sought and put in
place. By 2009, according to the British
High Commission Nairobi, ‘only 30
percent of British aid, closely audited, was
going through the Government of Kenya
because of concerns about financial
accountability. British aid to Kenya
could be significantly higher each year if
corruption and governance concerns were
credibly addressed’.
One of the alternative approaches to
financing and implementing development
projects in Kenya is the use of Non-
Governmental Organisations (NGOs).
The British government, for example,
signalled its intent to rely more on
NGOs, for its development assistance
projects in Kenya, than on the country’s
government when it announced in March
2010 that it was allocating its 2010/2011
budget of approximately US$31 million
for education in Kenya outside of
government systems, until the risks of
fraud were substantially reduced.
The total estimated loss from the Kenya
Education Sector Support Program
(KESSP) pool at the time this action
was announced was equivalent to US$3
million. In furtherance of this policy
of bypassing the Kenyan government,
the British aid budget of £390 million
(approximately US$600 million) to Kenya
for the period 2012/2013 to 2014/2015,
for example, was provided through NGOs
(45 per cent), international organisations
such as the UN and World Bank (25
per cent), emergency relief organisations
(24 per cent), and commercial service
providers (6 per cent).
While this approach of the British
government was meant to bypass the
corruption problem within the Kenyan
government, it also resulted in an increase
in the cost of providing development
assistance to Kenya since the channels
and partners being used had to be
compensated for their participation in
this new implementation and delivery
regime. Of course, one could cynically
argue that the compensation to the NGOs
and other partners would be less, and
perhaps considerably so, than the potential
embezzlement if such funding were to
continue through the government.
I vividly remember in April 2014, a group
of 17 Ambassadors, including those from
Kenya’s two major donors - the USA and
the UK - signed an op-ed piece that ran in
the local press in which they vehemently
expressed their concern that:
“Corruption is undermining Kenya’s
future. It threatens Kenya’s economic
growth, security, and the provision of
government services. It jeopardises
Kenya’s Vision 2030 goals. At the
moment when Kenya is restructuring
government through the devolution
process,
attracting
investment,
expanding trade, creating jobs, and
fighting terrorism, corruption is holding
the country back. It is an unwelcome
companion and has no place in Kenya’s
bright future. Corruption diminishes
government services. People don’t get
the benefit of their taxes because the
money has disappeared into someone’s
pocket. Money spent to deliver public
goods such as safe roads and health care
services doesn’t go as far.”
Fast forward and in 2019, almost 5 years
later, things have just become worse. It
strikes you like a prophecy coming true!
In the same year, 2014, in an address to the
nation, the President noted the following:
“Fellow Kenyans, the important question
we need to ask ourselves today is: Why
should we be worried about corruption?
I say we should be concerned about this
malpractice because it is harmful to the
economy and it undermines the ability